236 HORSE AND MAN. 



productive of disease when regularly worn, and by 

 its mechanical action greatly hinders horses from 

 employing their full strength. For the above 

 reasons on the plea of utility as well as humanity 

 its use should be discontinued.' 



This document is signed, not by ' theorists ' or ' hu- 

 manitarians,' nor by ignorant and impulsive w^omen, 

 but by upwards of a hundred well-known veterinary 

 surgeons, six of whom are professors in the veterinary 

 colleges of London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, &c. Twenty- 

 four of them are Fellows of the Eoyal College of 

 Veterinary Surgeons, and the remainder are Members 

 of the College. 



Several accompanied their signatures with addi- 

 tional remarks. 



Professor Axe, of the Eoyal Veterinary College, 

 London, makes the following statement : 'Eleven years' 

 experience in the post-mortem house and the dissecting- 

 room of our college has made me acquainted with a 

 variety of structural alterations and deformities arising 

 from this cause, and which must have rendered life a 

 burden and shortened its span. . . . If the public could 

 see and understand the effects of its insidious work on 

 the respiratory and other organs, I do not think that 

 its use would be long continued by them.' 



Mr. W. G. Taylor, of Nottingham, in allusion 

 to the adjective ' tight ' as applied to these reins, 



